"A lot of consumers are still keen to use cash. That is why it is still higher than other everyday transactions like paying for groceries at the supermarket."
Laurent says cash has one major advantage over digital payments - it can not be hacked.
New Zealand's strong links to the Pacific Islands also mean cash is popular. Some Pacific Islands use New Zealand currency and are so small they don't have ATMs.
That means cash sent by family and friends can be an important way of getting access to it.
Others have their own currencies but may not have as high a take up of bank accounts as what New Zealand has, Laurent adds.
The World Bank estimates that only 1 per cent of the population in New Zealand does not have a bank account.
But that is much higher in places like Papua New Guinea and Africa. Some countries have moved to direct mobile to mobile payment systems to get around this issue.
Laurent predicted cash use would continue to fall but would remain for a while to come in New Zealand.
"We don't see cash going away too fast."
The Reserve Bank of New Zealand is in the middle of a multi-year study on the future of cash amid concerns that the falling usage could eventually see life made harder for some people including those without a bank account, older people, the disabled, tourists and others who use it for cultural reasons.
They say with less use the cost of having cash and the infrastructure to support it is rising which could incentivise businesses to stop accepting it in the future or even charge for accepting cash.
Public submissions to the Reserve Bank found people were divided over whether cash would become harder to use or access in New Zealand and how soon this might occur.
But the majority agreed with the central bank's view that people who are financially excluded could be severely negatively impacted if cash becomes difficult to get or use in New Zealand.
A Reserve Bank cash use survey in 2017 found 11 per cent of the adult population use cash on a daily basis and 38 per cent used cash for transactional purposes at least three times a week or more.
While people aged 60 and over accounted for 41 per cent of cash holdings for transactional purposes.
Laurent said it was seeing a rise in the number of people using its service digitally although take-up was not as high as in Australia where the service has been around for longer.
Laurent, who moved to Australia in March last year from France, said digital transactions were far more widely used in Australasia than in France.
In Europe Sweden and Norway are leading the pack for the highest take-up of digital transactions while Germany retains the highest cash usage.
According to Bloomberg the average German wallet contains 103 physical euros, the European Central Bank estimated in November, more than three times the figure in France.
Cash is still the means of payment in some 80 per cent of point-of-sale transactions in Germany, compared with only 45 per cent—and falling fast—next door in the Netherlands.
Last year research by the BNZ found for those Kiwis who carry cash the average amount is $70.
And transferring money around the world is growing with globalisation. World Bank figures show in 2018 US$689 billion was moved internationally up from US$573b in 2016.
